MADRID, Spain – Cuba received a total of 1,680,485 visitors during the first half of 2024, according to official figures from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI). Although this number represents a 101.1% increase compared to the previous year, it barely reflects a 0.9% increase compared to the same period in 2023. This figure shows that the Cuban tourism sector is still far from reaching the regime’s goal of attracting 3.2 million tourists in 2024.
The negative trend has continued, with the third consecutive month of decline in the arrival of international visitors. Last June, only 134,948 tourists visited the Island, compared to 154,590 in the same month of the previous year.
Canada remains the main source market, although its visitors slightly decreased from 583,027 in 2023 to 577,549 in 2024. The arrival of Cubans residing abroad also fell from 176,349 to 155,320. In contrast, Russia showed a significant increase of 166.7%, going from 67,612 tourists in 2023 to 112,721 in 2024. Other markets, such as the United States, Mexico, and Argentina, also experienced growth, while traditional European markets like Germany, France, Spain, and Italy recorded declines.
To reverse this negative trend, the Ministry of Tourism is focusing on improving direct air connections to the Island. In contrast, Caribbean tourist destinations such as Punta Cana and Cancun have seen a significant rebound in the number of post-pandemic visitors, reaching historic levels.
As the figures of travelers who arrived in Cuba in the first six months of the year were released, the renowned economist Pedro Monreal remarked that “having gone through half of the year, the official data on welcomed visitors does not seem promising, with a dynamic very similar to that of the same period in 2023 and very far from the data of the last normal years (2017-2019).”
Last June, Cuban authorities had announced the arrival of 1.8 million tourists in the first six months of 2024. However, Monreal refuted this figure, arguing that to reach that number, 625,112 visitors would have had to arrive in June, something that was highly unlikely given that the maximum number of visitors in a month of June in recent years was 342,195, in 2018.
Monreal concluded as early as May that the figures provided by the Cuban government were “inconsistent” and did not reflect a true recovery of the tourism sector in the country.
In 2023, Cuba welcomed 2.4 million visitors, a considerably lower figure compared to the 4.2 million in 2019 and the 4.6 million in 2018.
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